


Please

by knightlymuse



Series: Decisions [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, I'm not that good at typing accents, Other, again sorry for OOCness, also sorry they don't have actual names in here, also there's implied smut and I'm not sorry about that, and for the accent, sorry for everything basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:00:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightlymuse/pseuds/knightlymuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your daughter is gone for months and you don't know how to sort out your emotions, sometimes you need a good drink and a somewhat decent friend to help. [Takes place during the events of chapter nine of Things]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please

It’s late when you walk into the bar, but you don’t care. You just need something to drink, and maybe a lot of it.

And thankfully, someone with the ability to drink like you do is already waiting for you.

You head to the bar and order your drink, taking your time. You’ve had a feeling that this conversation was going to take place eventually, but that doesn’t mean you were looking forward to what your drinking buddy had to say. If you could put it off a bit longer, you would. But you’ve put it off long enough.

You pay the bartender and head for the table your friend is waiting at, heels clicking along your path. You’d been busy today and hadn’t bothered changing from your work suit, which is not lost on your Scottish friend as you sit down. “Ya din’t ha’e ta git all dressed up fer me.”

You simply glare at you drink from your bottle instead of bothering to reply. He laughs quietly at you and you roll your eyes as you set your drink down. “I didn’t think we were meeting so you could laugh at me, Ampora.”

“No, yer righ’. Dat’s no’ de point of us meetin’ ah all.” He, too, clinks his drink down and you two lock eyes, trying to stare the other down. A common ritual for your meet-ups. Eventually, he breaks the gaze to scan the crowd, rapping his knuckles against the table. “So, how long’s she been gone now?”

You scowl at him, and he acts like he hasn’t seen it. Of course he was going to cut right to the chase; you don’t know why you were expecting better of him. “A while.”

“A course ih’s been a while,” he replies, still looking toward the crowd. “How long’s ‘a while’?”

You’re still scowling, more at the table than at him as you reply. “A few months?” To be honest, you’re not even entirely sure. It feels like it’s been much, much longer than a few mere months since your youngest child ran away from home and things got flipped around.

You can feel his eyes on you now, as if he’s waiting for you to elaborate. Reluctantly, you manage to say “I thought she would have been back in a week.”

He scoffs. “If she wasn’ plannin’ on comin’ back, ya shouldn’ta expected her to.”

“And just why not?” you hiss, staring up at him again. “She knew what I expected from her.” You let your sentence hang there as you swiftly take another drink, nearly spilling some of the alcohol onto yourself. After all this time, you’re still angry that she left. Angry that she hasn’t come home yet.

Angry at yourself for not actually listening to your eldest child when she wanted to go out and look for her sister. Among other things.

“Yeh expected a lo’ from her,” he’s saying, and you glare up at him again so you can actually pay attention. “Maybeh even too much outta her.”

“I wanted her to do better than I had. So maybe she wouldn’t fuck up like I did. You should remember, out of all people.” You think your eyes might come out of your skull if you glare any harder. “I was the same way with Aranea.”

He shakes his head at that. “No’ entirely.” You scoff as he continues. “Yeh knew Aranea better than yeh e’er knew Vriska. Yeh’d had a lotta time to understand how she was before li’l Vriska even came along.”

You grip your bottle harder, lowering your gaze to stare death into the table. “She was just a child then.”

“Dat’s still more den you e’er go’ to know your younges’, though. Yeh were busy wih… whate’er you were doin’.” He smirks; you can’t see as you glare at the table, but you can hear it coming from that smug asshole’s mouth.

You wish you could just leave this conversation now, but you know he’d follow you if you did.

Instead, you just let out a sigh. “Alright. I was too busy with my own thing to properly mother my children, and I barely even know them. Happy?” You finish your drink, setting down the bottle hard.

He shrugs, finishing his own before snaking your bottle and walking up to the bar. Meanwhile, you rest your chin in your hand as you think. You hate to admit it, but maybe this asshole is right, and you didn’t know Vriska that well. But you didn’t think you’d been that hard on her.

But then again, everything you seem to have known about this situation is getting fucked.

He sets the drink down in front of you and you grab it with your free hand immediately and drink from it. His eyebrows raise, but he says nothing as he drinks his own. The two of you are silent again as you try to search for what you want to say. “Alright. So… Say you’re right. Say she left because I was too hard on her, and I didn’t know her well enough to realize. What do I do about it?”

“Ah ain’t saying dat’s de only reason she up ‘n left,” he shoots back. You can almost physically feel your irritation skyrocketing at this man and you sigh loudly as you stand, ready to end this conversation. He reaches out and grabs onto your wrist, shaking his head. “C’mon. Si’ down.” Reluctantly, you listen to him. “Now listen. Yeh can’ go an’ blame yerself for e’erthin’. Da two a yeh are alike in dat yeh don’ talk much ‘bout wha’s botherin’ ya. Ah know Vriska, an’ Ah know she wouldn’ leave o’er just yeh bein’ hard on her.”

You cross your arms. “You haven’t even seen her in years. How could you possibly know what she’s like?”

“Hey now. Don’ forget who it was dat took care a yer youngins whene’er yer Ma couldn’.” He smiles a little bit at that, as if he’s remembering, before adopting a more gentle tone. “If she ain’t comin’ back on her own, den yer gunna have ta be da one dat goes ta her. She’s as bullheaded as yeh are. Yeh’ll need ta make da next move.”

You grumble as you take another drink from your bottle. “How’d you get so damn smart about this?”

He lets out a genuine chuckle at that. “Because I remember a girl dat was jus’ like her.”

 

\--

 

When you get back to your hotel room in a couple hours, you’re exhausted in more ways than one. But Ampora had given you a lot to think about during the moments you could actually think around him. Almost as if on cue, your body reminds you that you’re also a little sore, and you sit down on your bed gingerly.

You pull your phone from your bag, fiddling with it for a few moments. As much as you hate to admit it, you’re pretty sure he’s been right. But you’re still angry.

Though now you’re mostly angry at yourself instead of your daughter.

And now that your anger is ebbing away, more feelings are coming into the mix, ones that you’d misdirected, misinterpreted. Your worry, your fear… your sorrow. After all, you do miss your daughter.

It’s late, and you don’t even know if she’s awake (or for that matter, alive). You don’t even know what you’re expecting after that last mishap when you’d called her. But you dial Vriska’s number and sigh in relief that it is, in fact, still active as it rings. Your heart kind of aches, and you realize how much you’d missed even just hearing her voice once it goes to voicemail.

The tone goes off, and you start talking.

“Vriska. It’s your mom. Look, I know you and I haven’t exactly been on the best terms or anything. But I want to work on that. Just… Just, come home, or call me, or call your sister. At least do something to let us know you’re okay. …It would be nice if you came home, though. We… we miss you.”

You end the call, tossing the phone onto your bed. After a few moments, you push yourself up and head to the room’s bathroom for a much needed shower.

Tomorrow you’ll head home and apologize to Aranea for how wrong you’d been. Right now, you just need some time to yourself.

You’re really hoping you’ve done the right thing.


End file.
